Thermal Environment and Students’ Thermal Comfort in Open Classrooms at a Nature-based School

Teguh Heru Winarso; M. Syarif Hidayat

doi:10.30998/lja.v9i2.4700

Authors

Teguh Heru Winarso Mercu Buana University Author
M. Syarif Hidayat Mercu Buana University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30998/lja.v9i2.4700

Keywords:

Thermal comfort, Open classroom, Nature school, Thermal environment, Natural ventilation.

Abstract

Thermal comfort is an essential aspect of designing educational buildings in tropical regions, as it significantly influences students' concentration, productivity, and overall comfort during the learning process. Open classrooms in nature-based schools utilize natural ventilation as a passive design strategy to reduce energy consumption. However, outdoor environmental conditions, such as air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, and solar radiation, may affect occupants' thermal comfort. This study aims to identify the thermal environmental conditions, analyze students' thermal comfort levels, and examine the influence of thermal environmental factors on students' thermal comfort in the open classrooms of Sekolah Alam Indonesia Cipedak. A quantitative approach was employed using descriptive and explanatory methods through field surveys, measurements of thermal environmental parameters, and questionnaires distributed to 67 fourth-grade elementary school students. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. The results indicate that the average air temperature reached 32.6°C, with solar radiation averaging 372.2 W/m². Meanwhile, the average relative humidity was 57.8%, remaining within the thermal comfort standard range, and the average air velocity was relatively low at 0.20 m/s. Nevertheless, students' thermal comfort was categorized as moderately comfortable based on respondents' perceptions. Inferential analysis revealed that perceived air temperature (p = 0.004) and perceived air velocity (p = 0.034) had a significant effect on students' thermal comfort, whereas perceived relative humidity (p = 0.500) and perceived solar radiation (p = 0.081) did not show significant effects. These findings suggest that users' adaptive capacity to naturally ventilated environments plays an important role in shaping thermal comfort perceptions, in addition to the physical characteristics of the thermal environment.

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